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Monday, 5 September 2011

When its NOT the first day back at school.....

Well I know I am certainly not the only one writing about this today but in our local area today the schools were all back. I'd be lying if I said that September doesn't make me a little panicky about workbooks, studybooks etc, etc should I be pushing Bailey more now he would be in Year 9? Should I be pushing all of them into more work, more of a routine? The one thing I know most about home educating is that we are all doing it very differently, I don't believe there is a right/wrong way to do it, I think we are all doing what we feel is best for our children/our families. So today we began our own version of 'back to school', thankfully it didn't begin with stressy trip around clarks, labelling school uniform and P.E kits and picking out lunchboxes. It began with a chat about Jacqueline Wilson books over breakfast (my girls are totally obsessed with JW books), I got some knitting done, jigsaws were played with, books were read, I even managed a quick relaxing bath! Then I got some sheets I had printed off about food webs, predators & prey, consumers, producers and decomposes. We had a good chat abut the life cycle of caterpillars after our recent experiment and the children happily did an information sheet about it too. This naturally lead on to the food webs, which I had hoped would happen. We all had a huge conversation about it, we all learnt a few new things, some food chains were drawn and a worksheet or two was filled in by all four children. Then we did a little bit of Geography with some fun map worksheets explaining basic co-ordinates, which will hopefully progress further. After lunch we sat on the sofa and had a game of Boggle and our new favourite-Pokemon Yahtzee! Lots of adding up and that was our maths lesson. The girls talked me into watching Saturday X Factor (felt like I rolled in a pack of cheesy Doritos's afterwards) whilst I continued my kitting and then we watched a fab programme I had recorded called "Ocean Giants" which was all about Dolphins and Whales and was truly fascinating, even for those of us that are not very into animals (i.e. me!). This managed to tie i with both our prey/predator chat earlier and also the migration with our Geography. A little walkies for the dog after for some fresh air. Then lots of colouring in done and K'Nex building whilst I made tea and then Ruben did his reading and afterwards Pippi and I played a very good game of Scrabble. Not every body's first day would have been as much fun as this and I'm aware that not everybody likes doing worksheets but my four quite enjoyed it (can't exactly vouch for Bailey, as he could be having serious XBOX holiday -over withdrawal but....). And the super bit? (Well apart from all the other super bits about my day, obviously!) We have managed to buy a little runaround car so we can thoroughly enjoy our autumn and all the fun and adventures it may bring! Still continuing with my Super September.... :-D

5 comments:

Amazing day. We love ocean giants too. I love to leave our girls in front of things like that while I cook dinner and even the nearly 4 year old seems to enjoy it! Like to see a good game of scrabble was included ;)

I try not to panic about workbooks too much these days but I think that's because I may have ODed a little in the earlier years of HE! I still have stacks of them now :) lol!